The Dis-Appearance of Writing. Literature and the Imaginary

Abstract

In this article, I want to raise the question about the future of literary writing in the age of digital media. The future of writing is at stake in coded, networked societies where writing is morphing into a technical image: a screen image. The increasing importance of the technical image raises questions about the stability of writing as an “analog”, linear code. How is writing being affected by the dominance of the technical image, and how is writing mutating into such an image? I answer this question by focusing on Hari Kunzru’s novella Memory Palace and Zachary Sifuentes’ graphic work Fugitive Sparrows.